Petrified (31 page)

‘How's it going?' Nathan asked her.

‘There's at least twenty percent more prolactin in his pituitary gland than there was the last time I tested him, and almost twice as much corticosterone in his adrenal gland. Normally, birds only produce hormones in this quantity when they're getting ready to migrate, and need a huge amount of stored energy for very long flights. I think it's possible that Torchy releases all of this tremendous energy in one burst to become incandescent.'

Nathan went over and looked at the results that she had printed out from the QX diagnostic computer. ‘That looks highly likely, Kavita. Good work.'

He was about to suggest some further blood tests when his cellphone bleeped. He checked the number but he didn't recognize it.

‘Nathan Underhill.'

‘Ah, Professor Underhill. Here is Theodor Zauber.'

‘Herr Zauber – I was wondering if you'd call me. What happened at the penitentiary this morning, that was nothing to do with me. I had no idea that the police had a tail on me.'

‘And you expect me to believe that? You think I am some kind of
dummkopf
?'

‘No, I don't. But I wouldn't do anything that puts my family at risk.'

‘You can protest as much as you like, Professor. It is plain to me that I cannot trust you.'

‘So what are you going to do now? If you want your gargoyles to come back to life and stay alive, you'll
have
to trust me, won't you?'

‘You told that police detective that your intention in meeting me was to find out where they are and destroy them. Was that a lie?'

‘Of course it was a lie. I couldn't let them think I was really going to help you, could I?'

Theodor Zauber was breathing very hard, as if he were trying to control his temper. ‘No,' he said, ‘I cannot risk you discovering where my gargoyles are. I will just have to carry on my experiments without you. If I bring enough gargoyles back to life, I am bound to find out eventually how to prevent them from transmuting back into stone.'

‘You said yourself that if you do that, a whole lot of innocent people are going to get killed.'

‘Well, so be it. My father took many lives in order to further his research. I will have to do the same. You have only yourself to blame, Professor. You could have prevented this, but you chose instead to double-cross me. When the people of this city start to be torn to pieces, look in the mirror and ask yourself who is responsible.'

‘Listen, I
will
help you!' said Nathan. ‘Just give me the chance to prove that you can trust me! We could start with only a couple of gargoyles, in any location you choose.'

‘Too late, I'm afraid. You admit that you lied to the police. How do I know that you are not lying to me? You have poisoned the well, Professor. Now you and many others will have to pay the price for that.'

‘
Zauber
—' Nathan began, but Theodor Zauber had gone. He tried to call the number back, but the cellphone had been switched off.

‘
Shit
,' he said, under his breath.

Kavita looked up from her readings. ‘What's wrong, Professor?'

Nathan was already punching out Grace's number at Chestnut Hill Medical Center, so that he could warn her not to go home this evening.

‘What's wrong?' he replied. ‘I think I just set the end of the world in motion.'

He called Grace, and then he called Denver, and told them not to go home when Grace had finished her surgery for the day and Denver had finished football practice, but to meet him at the Doubletree Hotel downtown.

After what had happened to Stu, Nathan had asked Denver if he wanted to take some time off school, but Denver had preferred to go back to his studies and his sports. ‘I don't want to think about Stu, Dad, even for a second. Every time I close my eyes I see him lying on the floor, all covered in blood. And that screaming monster trying to bust in through the window.'

Next, Nathan called Detective Pullet. She was on a coffee break and she had her mouth full of lemon Danish.

‘I just had a call from Theodor Zauber. He's extremely pissed, to say the least.'

‘Did you get his number? I doubt if we'll be able to trace it, but we can try.'

‘I have it on my cell. I'll send it to you. But trying to arrest him like that – you blew any chance I had of finding out where he's keeping those gargoyles.'

‘Look, I'm sorry. I had no idea that he would be able to give us the slip. I mean, how was I to know that he was a hypnotist?'

‘There's no point in beating yourself up about it, Detective. But I have to warn you that he's going to bring a whole lot more of those things to life, and everybody who's out on the street is going to be in danger of being attacked.'

‘We can't put out a warning like that,' said Jenna. ‘Either people won't believe us, or else there'll be total panic, like that
War of the Worlds
broadcast. The whole city could come to a standstill.'

‘I don't know,' Nathan told her. ‘Maybe you could find some way of wording it so that people will just keep their eyes on the skies. Maybe you could tell them that the city is being plagued by a flock of unusually aggressive crows.'

‘Unusually aggressive crows? You can't be serious.'

‘People remember
The Birds
, don't they? Tell them it's a similar problem to that.'

‘I don't know. I think I need to talk to my captain.'

Nathan said, ‘Our number one priority is locating Theodor Zauber. Maybe you could put out a description.'

‘Again, I'll have to talk to my captain. It took
me
long enough to believe that these gargoyles are really real, but he's the most skeptical man I ever met. He doesn't even believe in global warming.'

‘Please keep me up to date, Detective. I'm taking my wife and son to stay at the Doubletree Hotel until this is all over.'

‘OK, Professor. And if you hear from Zauber again, let me know
immediately
, you got it?'

‘I hate to say this, but I think we'll be hearing from one of his gargoyles before we hear from him.'

THIRTY-FIVE

Tuesday, 1:47 a.m.

J
ay and Tory and Kenny and Pat were sitting in one of the brightly-painted children's playhouses in the Palumbo Playground on Fitzwater Street, passing a joint around.

The night was chilly, and their breath fumed almost as much as the skunk they were smoking, but they were all wearing thick coats and scarves and Jay was wearing a huge black woolly hat.

The city had quietened down, but there was still a restless swooshing of traffic all around them, punctuated by horns blowing, and sirens whooping.

‘You know what my old man said to me yesterday?' said Jay. ‘He said, what are you staying at school for? He said when he was my age he was working in the spoon factory, making spoons. I said, that's the reason I want to stay at school. I don't want to make no spoons.'

‘I know,' said Kenny, ‘you want to be an unclear physicist.'

‘It's “nuclear”, you dimwit. Besides, that's not what I want to be anyhow. I want to be like a New Age Diddy. I want to have my own record label and my own line of men's clothing and my own chain of restaurants. But I don't want to be such an arrogant asshole as Diddy. I believe in swagger, like he does, but I believe in, like,
restrained
swagger.'

‘I want to be a model,' said Tory. She had long blonde hair and big gray eyes and a pert little nose. She was wearing an oversized pink padded windbreaker and gray woolen leggings. ‘In fact I want to be America's next top model.'

‘You won't have no-o-o trouble at all,' Jay assured her. ‘Models don't need no brains, do they, so you have all the necessary qualifications already.'

Tory slapped him and Jay laughed and lifted his arm up to protect himself. ‘Temperamental, too! That's good! All the top models got to be temperamental!'

Pat was coppery-haired and pale and wore a dark brown duffel coat. ‘I always dreamed of being a nurse,' she said.

‘A
nurse
?' said Jay. ‘That is one genuinely shitty job. Long hours for crappy pay, and all that wiping old people's asses.'

‘I
did
dream of being a nurse but I changed my mind. Now I want to be a manicurist. Or maybe a dog-groomer or a pole-dancer.'

‘Hey, I like a girl with ambition.'

Kenny said, ‘Me, I want to be ride-pimper. Just give me a workshop and a set of tools and a fifty-nine Chevy Impala and I'll be h-a-p-p-y for the rest of my life.'

Pat passed him the joint and he took a deep drag at it, and then went into a coughing fit. ‘That is seriously strong shit, man. Where'd you score it? Jesus!'

Jay was about to answer when they heard a harsh screeching sound, directly above their heads. Then another screech, off to their right. And another, and another.

‘What the hell was
that
, man?' said Kenny. He turned around and peered across the playground, shielding his eyes against the nearby street light.

There was more screeching, and Jay stood up and leaned out of the side of the playhouse. ‘Sounds like buzzards,' he said.

‘
Buzzards
? In the middle of the city? And how do you happen to know what buzzards sound like?'

‘I seen enough cowboy movies. Those are definitely buzzards.'

‘Oh, the great bird expert, all of a sudden.'

They heard three or four more screeches, and then a loud flapping of wings. Tory stood up, too, and took hold of Jay's arm. ‘They sound
big
,' she said. ‘And
look
! There they are! They're flying all around us!'

She pointed upward. Although the playhouse was under the trees, they could make out at least three shadowy shapes. They were circling around and around, about fifty or sixty feet above them, their wings making a steady, dull thumping sound, like somebody beating carpets.

At first, they couldn't see anything at all. But then, without warning, a huge gray creature swooped around the side of the playhouse, so close that its horny wing-tip clanged against one of the yellow-painted metal uprights. It turned its head as it flew past, and they saw bulging green eyes and a curved beak and fangs. It screeched, and then it flapped its wings and disappeared upward.

The four of them stared at each other in shock. Tory was stunned into silence but Pat was panting in terror as if she had just run the hundred meters. ‘What the
fuck
was that?' said Kenny, in the thinnest of screams. ‘That wasn't no buzzard, that was a fucking
dragon
!'

‘Let's just get the hell out of here,' said Jay. ‘Like – let's go, man! These things look like they want to fucking eat us!'

They jostled their way toward the playhouse steps, but before they could clamber down them, they heard a high-pitched whistling sound. One of the creatures collided with the side of the playhouse with such a devastating impact that it felt as if they had been hit head-on by a speeding truck. They were all thrown backward on to the floor, tumbling over each other, and Kenny hit his head on one of the railings with an audible
klonk
.

The steps were ripped up sideways, so that now they led nowhere at all. Three of the playhouse uprights were so badly bent inward that one side of the roof almost touched the handrail.

‘Jump out!' Jay shouted. ‘Jump out and run for it!'

Both Tory and Pat were screaming, but Kenny was still lying on his back looking stunned. Jay snatched hold of his sleeve and tried to heave him upright. ‘Get up, man! They're trying to kill us!'

Tory managed to lift one leg over the handrail, but she was just about to drop down to the ground when one of the creatures landed right next to her, noisily folding its wings and making a hoarse rattling noise in its throat.

Tory started screaming again, and Jay let go of Kenny's sleeve and tried to make a grab for her hand. But the creature was much too quick for him. It dug its claws into the back of Tory's pink windbreaker and lifted her off the handrail like a hawk picking up a field mouse. With a few drafty flaps of its wings it rose up into the air and carried her high over the playground, screaming and thrashing her arms and legs.

‘
Tory
!' shouted Jay. He vaulted over the handrail but he was still in mid-air when a second creature plummeted down and hit him. It struck him so hard and so fast that he exploded, his head flying over the railings and rolling across Fitzwater Street, underneath a passing car. His detached arms flew up in the air, turning over and over as if they were being juggled like Indian clubs. His whole body burst open, and was strewn across the play area in a chaotic tangle of lungs and intestines.

The creature that had hit him turned in mid-air and then came swooping back down. It landed among his remains, its wings still outstretched, scratching through them with its claws until it found his heart. It let out a screech of triumph, and then it shredded his heart with its beak and teeth, greedily devouring it.

Pat was still crouching on the playhouse floor on her hands and knees. Every now and then she let out a low, quavering moan. Kenny was lying beside her, half-concussed and not at all sure what was happening.

‘Pat?' he said, trying to lift up his head and look around. ‘Pat – where's Jay?'

‘Mmmpphhh,' said Pat.

‘What? I don't understand you. Where's Jay? Where did Tory go?'

Pat stared at him. ‘Those flying things . . . they took Tory away. Right up in the air. She's gone. Then one of them came down and smashed Jay to bits.'

‘What? What do you mean, smashed him to bits?'

‘I mean smashed him to bits! Smashed him into pieces! There isn't any Jay any more!'

Kenny managed to roll himself on to his side and sit up. He reached around and touched the back of his head and said, ‘Jesus. That hurts.'